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Title: Country Girl, The
Author(s): Cliffford Odets
Licensing Agent: Dramatists Play Service, Inc.
Genre: Drama
Length: Full Length
Male Roles: 6
Female Roles: 2
Extras: 0
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Description: As told by "Fireside Theater": "THE COUNTRY GIRL, in this affectionate backstage story, is Georgie Elgin, a lovable, faithful, forgiving woman whose long years of devotion to her actor husband, Frank, have almost obliterated her own personality. Being an actor's wife is not the glamorous role so many imagine. Life is either feast or famine with months of the year spent in bolstering up the morale of a man out of work. Some actors make enough, save enough, to tide them over these enforced waits between plays, but not Frank, whose long periods of idleness are punctuated by despair and drink. Then came the event that all actors pray for - the really big part in an important new play. Georgie couldn't believe her ears when Broadway's youngest director, Bernie Dodd, picked Frank for the lead. Of course he should take it. And of course she'd help, but only Georgie knew the struggle it would be to pull Frank together, to reassure him at every turn, and above all, to keep him from slipping at those moments of discouragement that were sure to come. Georgie performed her self-effacing, morale-building job on Frank under the tense watchful eyes of a nervous director whose reputation depended on this, his first big play. During rehearsals he was suspicious, doubting her good influence, believing Frank's lies that she caused his downfall, even trying to get rid of her. Then on the evening of the Boston opening the strain proved too great. Frank cracked wide open, and in the dark light of Frank's relapse, Bernie saw the country girl for what she was - a magnificent person whose self-sacrificing goodness had never been truly appreciated."
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